I am of the opinion that Clinton ran a solid campaign.

[NCTraveler]

She contrasted the stark differences between herself and Trump. She had detailed progressive policies that resonated with people such as myself and had excellent one-liners for those with the attention span of a gnat. She put forward a progressive message and destroyed her opponent with shots(contrary to popular belief, Clinton was the more popular one).

This is, without a doubt, the fault of the people of this country.

Trump publicly asked Russia for help during his campaign. The writing was on the wall. He put his hate on display for all to see. He refused to release his tax returns and will go down as one of the least transparent people to ever win the modern Presidency.

As rights and support for those who need protections most are eroded, there will be no secret as to what happened. The American people showed up in enough numbers to elect Trump.

The current state of society in this country is what is wrong. It's like we are sick. It really wasn't the Clinton campaign. Claiming it was is an extremely simplistic view.

(Clintons campaign was not flawless and you don't see that promoted in this op. Just cutting that one off at the pass.)

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. Of course she did - and I started as a Bernie supporter. The media owns much of the outcome

[BlueMTexpat]

15. Thanks for saying that!

She worked her heart out!

[Wounded Bear]

2. K & R ......agreed....nt

[Lucinda]

3. Yep. n/t

[Martin Eden]

4. Hillary had to overcome numerous formidable obstacles

> a ginormous double standard in which one slip by her was tantamount to a deal breaker while all the outrageous things Trump did and said were just Donald being Donald.

> billions in free advertising given to Trump by a mainstream media that spent 3 times as much coverage on the email "scandal" than on the important issues the next president will have to address

> decades of fake scandals and a rightwing noise machine that built up a public perception of Hillary as corrupt and untrustworthy

> her own mistakes including the 2002 vote to give GW Bush authority to invade Iraq, her secret highly paid speeches to Wall Street bigwigs, and her initial support of TPP

[NCTraveler]

5. Agree with each point. nt.

[andym]

25. Good analysis. nt.

[HRC2020]

47. Money is essential as air

So what do you want her to do? run a campaign without money. Politics and favors are interchangeable. HRC is pragmattic enough to realize that

[Martin Eden]

48. Are you referring to Hillary's secret speeches to Wall Street bigwigs?

The fees for those speeches were personal income and did not go to her campaign.

The problem isn't that she delivered those speeches. The problem is a lack of transparency creating the impression that in return for the fees and future campaign donations she would serve the interests of the same big banks that caused the economic crash of 2007-2008.

It should be no surprise this lack of transparency and subsequent campaign donations would cause most voters -- including lifelong Democrats on the Left -- to be highly skeptical that once in office Hillary Clinton would be a real champion for the kind of truly significant reforms of Wall Street (including the breakup of banks too big to fail) which are necessary.

If the skepticism is justified, then we need a better candidate in 2020.

[Gothmog]

6. Agreed-the Comey act of treason really hurt

[SharonAnn]

7. Agreed.

[mcar]

8. Yes she did

She was up against something no sane candidate has ever had to deal with before.

[Orsino]

9. A great one, I think.

The missteps seemed minor compared to the sheer scale of her operation.

[yardwork]

10. I agree.

[Yupster]

11. Whenever you lose anything by a tiny bit

there are always a bunch of things you should have done differently. That's just the nature of any competition.

[NCTraveler]

12. Exactly. More people were given reason to vote than did.

There is zero reason to whitewash the reality of the irresponsibility of the electorate in this. I'm sure a lot of people are realizing they should have done a little something different on Election Day. The last line in my op was for you. Your point was not in contention to the point I made it clear.

[LaydeeBug]

14. This is, without a doubt, the fault of RUSSIAN HACKING. 3 million does not lie.

[zipplewrath]

16. It was a very close race

One can point to almost anything and say it was the "difference" because any little thing will matter.

Much of the criticism is because people saw her campaign making "mistakes" prior to the election and now they feel validated.

I think that actually if one steps back and takes the long view, there may have been no way to run her campaign and win. Too much stacked against her, and really the Democratic Party. She isn't the only candidate that lost and we've been losing in a sense for a long time. The democratic party is in the worst shape it's been in decades. The Clinton's have had a hand in that, along with Obama. But there are way more involved than just those two.

[dionysus]

17. I don't buy it. We should have been able to run a moldy ham

Sandwich against trump and obliterate him. She should have beat him bigger than reagan beating mondale.

Hell, she was my second choice and even then i figured even with her shortcomings she'd walk away with a landslide. And that's what damn near everybody thought going into the vote, too.

Now we're looking back thinking no matter what she did we'd have the same outcome.

This deeply disturbs me because first off, that would attribute some kind of power or skill to trump, where i cannot seem to see any. Second, that would mean we dropped the ball terribly in choosing our candidate. I voted for bernie in the primaries because I thought he'd be better, but not because i thought hillary would lose to trump otherwise! I figured either one woild.mop the floor with him!

Instead of a normal election it became:

2016: Rise of the Douchebag

[Cosmocat]

18. Republicans had control of every level of government before and after November 8th

People are still not getting the math ...

We are only 1/3 of the country, not 1/2.

The problem is that our opposite 1/3 is meaner, tougher and more resolute AND that the mushy "middle' is so soft headed it has increasingly broke to the "right's" anger and vitriol.

Sorry, but Trump is pretty upfront about being an authoritarian, fascist leader, and 1/3 of this country is gleefully on board and a 1/3 of this country is just going along for the ride.

Republicans have been out and out about wanting to dismantle SS, Medicare, etc, and this country has given them the legislative numbers to do it ...

[dionysus]

19. Your numbers are right, but in presidential races at least, the last several

anyhow, have split the country right down the middle so to speak... her 3 million cushion was enough to show a clear popular vote win in number, but still not enough to put up a large margin percentage-wise.

Let that be a cautionary tale (that no one will heed, sadly) about putting forth a candidate with high negatives...

[Cosmocat]

22. Her "negatives" are the result of her running for POTUS

I get your point and that was a big part of why I voted Bernie, but if you track Hillary's favorability it tracks directly with her being public enemy number 1 for republicans. When BHO held that mantle her favorability actually was pretty high.

Once he won re-election and they refocused on her it dipped, once she announced and they were 100 percent focused on her it bottomed out. Side note to that, you see a correlating increase in BHO's favorability.

The axis of conservative lunacy and hate and a complicant media destroys pretty much any D short of Bill or BHOs charm.

They destroyed decent, honorable, intelligent men like Gore, Kerry and Dean ...

Maybe Bernie would have nudged it out, but make no mistake, just as BHO got slandered and piled on for the Reverand whoever it was, the flagpin, and whatever other crap, Bernie absolutely would have been drug into the mud, too.

Hillary is a good person and for a lifelong politician has done a LOT of good things. She ran a solid campaign, was pretty good overall and didn't make too many gaffes (all pols make some).

This country just is that fucking far gone that it gobbles up right wing bullshit and asks for more.

[dionysus]

38. I admit i don't really like hillary... but i don't have to. I didn't

vote for her to be my buddy, i voted for her to run the country! I mean she's okay... i'm sure if i got stuck next to her on a plabe ride we'd gwt along well enough and she'd be really interesting to talk to.. i don't get how people get so attached to these politicians, almost personally...

[Yurovsky]

42. Your last point is a pet peeve of mine...

I've worked on plenty of campaigns, have friends in local & state office, and have met national politicians and a couple former Presidents (for about 30 seconds each...). I admire some of these people, but for crying out loud I've never really worshipped a politician in my entire life outside of possibly Nelson Mandela. The fawning over people who most likely wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire just never ceases to amaze me.

[Fast Walker 52]

28. he's an asshole and a bad businessman, but he knows how to appeal to people

and he did that brilliantly. I really wouldn't under-estimate his skills for that. At the same time, the media contributed mightily to his "win", but particularly rightwing media.

[dionysus]

37. Well, yes and no... he does appeal to people, certain people, by

bringing out the worst in them... it's a perverted form of "people skills"...

[NobodyHere]

20. It may have been solid

But it obviously wasn't solid enough.

[NCTraveler]

23. We should have worked outside influences harder like Trump.

Lobbied outside governments to insert themselves on our behalf. We were lacking in that area.

[betsuni]

21. K&R

[Tatiana]

24. It definitely was solid. She clearly learned from 2008.

This is the fault of the reality-obsessed deplorables who voted for Trump.

I hope those people get exactly what they deserve (and voted for).

[guillaumeb]

26. Recommended. And also:

Interstate Cross Check
James Comey
generalized GOP voter suppression
media focus on the theatrics of Trump,
media ignoring the complete lack of any coherent plan by Trump,
media focus on emails.

[andym]

27. She ran a solid campaign and so did Trump.

Each played to their strengths.The problem was the GOP and their allies invested serious resources in defaming her for the last 3 years. However, even so, without the FBI's public involvement with the email server, she would be President today.

[Fast Walker 52]

29. I think the biggest mistake her campaign made--that we all made-- was believing the polls

and not believing how many people could vote for a horrible person like Trump.

[NCTraveler]

31. Completely agree. Nt

[HassleCat]

30. Trump is very good at what he does.

Playing to fear and uncertainty is his great talent. He sucked Clinton into his little whirlpool of trading personal insults.

[Rex]

32. I still don't understand the math behind the EC votes.

Despite that, HRC did get 3 million more votes. I guess that doesn't matter.

[MichMan]

33. All campaigns make mistakes, but IMO they handled the email "issue" very poorly

Always easy to criticize after the fact, but IMO they handled the e mail "issue" very poorly.

The whole thing was way overblown by the media, however the campaign helped fuel that by refusing to confront the issue head on for months trying to stall and hope it would fizzle out .

First she stated that it was allowed by the State Dept, then that no classified material was ever sent, then it was that nothing marked classified was ever sent. All of these nuanced statements just dared the media to try and prove her wrong and instead it just became a constant drip leading right up to the election. Absolutely, Comey absolutely played a role as well and needs to be held accountable, but all it did was make people think she was trying to hide something. I'm sure her attempt at humor was caused by frustration, but when asked about he server being "wiped" her retort "you mean like with a cloth" hit like a lead balloon.

She should have been able to demolish Trump with one hand behind her back, so while there was a litany of outside reasons that affected the results, the campaign did make some fairly egregious mistakes including taking too much stock in flawed polling.

Added in that very few parties win three straight Presidential elections (only happened once in my lifetime) and that many people were just tired of both Clinton and Bush dynasties (that is why I think Jeb lost so bad)

[Lee-Lee]

36. Agreed. I suspect part of the reason for the poor response on that

is because the same people she trusted to manage things who allowed that server to be setup and thought it was a wise decision were among the same people or group of people who she was trusting to craft the response.

Had they acted faster and been totally transparent from the get go it wouldn't have been as big an issue. But doing that would have been those same people admitted they screwed up in setting it up for her in the first place and never telling her it could be a problem later.

You don't want to put the person who engineered a potential disaster in charge of fixing it if they can't admit they screwed up to begin with.

[NCTraveler]

35. Not sure where I argued anything about Trump not being President Elect.

What's soiled is a minority of the voters in this country. The deplorables.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

39. I don't think she did at all

She failed to run a national campaign and instead fell into the trap of fetishizing polling and electoral vote math and created her own reality based on it. That contrived reality included the supposed truism that Republicans would be so repulsed by Trump that they would vote for her. I spend a lot of time around housebroken Republicans, their reaction to Republican insanity is tight-lipped embarrassment and not a begrudging embrace of any Democrat.

[hurl]

40. Solid campaign vs popular perception

"This is, without a doubt, the fault of the people of this country." Agreed completely. This is about the mentality of voters, not about platforms or realistic policy.

Problem is it should never have been even close. That's the depressing part for me. The right was massively and completely effective in convincing low-information voters that Hillary was corrupt, and Democrats couldn't be bothered to counter this message. People like us, who pay even moderate attention, knew it was a crock all along, but the fact is that most voters don't pay much attention, and we have to play the hand we are dealt.

I saw a yelp review that said something to the effect that, "This company lied so much that Hillary Clinton would look like a saint in comparison." This is the effectiveness that the right wing achieved in tainting Hillary's reputation among voters not paying attention. Of course it's not even close to reality, but it is perception among the unwashed. In my opinion, this is where Democrats should focus efforts.

I think the low-information voters are maybe where Democrats should start focusing. They can be manipulated easily, and Democrats should not ignore them. Republicans don't, and that is one way they win, IMO.

[Takket]

41. she would have won, with ease, on a level playing field.

[aikoaiko]

43. If there was a weakness is was complacency after the Access Hollywood video.

Our October surprise against Trump was devastating and his unfavorable numbers were exploding.

To the extent that there was complacency, I think it led to not seeing the rust belt weakness. Trump appeared twice as often in those critical states as Hillary (although she had lots of surrogates show up) after the respective conventions.

We were content with shimmy videos, mannequin videos, spectacular celebrity events, and "for the children" videos.

I have no love for Clinton politics but I voted for her for the sake of the country and even I was getting wrapped up in the complacency of assuming an HRC win.

[NCTraveler]

45. I am not of the opinion she ran a flawless campaign.

I do think you make excellent points.

[jfern]

44. She lost to someone who had worse favorable ratings than Goldwater

[NCTraveler]

46. Pretty shocking.

Amazing what she was up against. The campaign of disinformation against her was truly impressive. Even the Director of the FBI was directly involved in the campaign of disinformation.